Closed
by Sadie Flood
Summary: Rory longs for comfort and stability. Has she found a solution, or has she just made things worse? Written for the Improv.


Title: Closed  
Author: Sadie Flood (sadieflood666@yahoo.com)  
Rating: PG-13  
Improv: ego, tender, glass, freak  
Disclaimer: None of this is mine, and the world is probably better for it.  
Author's Note: I'm sorry about the pairing! I wanted something unconventional, as usual, and this is where I ended up. Next time I'll try for something slightly less squicky. No promises, though.  
Spoilers: I'm pretty sure there aren't any. One unspecific reference to a character not found in season 1.  
  
~~~~~~~~~~~  
  
Rory rapped her knuckles against the locked door three times. When the usual signal brought no response, she was prepared to head home, thoroughly disappointed. Where could he be? What could--  
  
Her train of thought was interrupted by the door sliding open. She was unable to hide her glee. "Thank you, thank you, thank you, I swear I won't stay long--"  
  
"Stay as long as you want," Luke said, locking the door again and making sure the closed sign was properly displayed to discourage anyone who might have happened to see Rory's illicit after-hours entry.  
  
It had become a pleasant routine, the perfect end to her day. When little else in her life was going according to plan, it was comforting to know some things would never change. Harvard hadn't worked out; her scores were good, but not good enough. She'd sacrificed some study time in the interest of loosening up during her last year at Chilton. That decision had been easy to make once she realized that Harvard had never truly been her dream, it had just been a convenient ambition foisted upon her by a mother determined not to allow her daughter to make the same mistakes she'd made. Rory was fine with Harvard; Paris wanted it. Instead, she agreed to Mount Holyoke when they accepted her and offered a scholarship, and she wasn't disappointed in the least.   
  
It was June now, and at the end of the summer she would be leaving Stars Hollow. To make extra spending money she could save for college, she'd taken a job at a big chain bookstore in Hartford. In the evenings she would drive back to the empty house, stopping only for her late-night trip to the diner for coffee and pie.  
  
She looked up at Luke, who seemed oblivious, as he poured her second cup of coffee. She wondered if he was secretly dying inside every time he saw her because she was reminiscent of her mother, who would be returning from California in a week, her impetuous trip to see Rory's father lasting a week longer than expected.   
  
Rory knew better by now than to get her hopes up about re-marriage, although it would certainly be fitting if her mother and father reconciled just as she left home. Sometimes she wished that the close relationship between she and her mother could have endured the last two years she spent at Chilton, but mostly she tried not to regret the typical adolescent-parent separation that had actually occurred. Lorelai had jerked her around one too many times on the Christopher issue, and Rory had come to resent Lorelai just a little for her apparent disregard for her feelings. It wasn't a lot, only a little, but somehow that resentment managed to drive a spike through the center of their relationship, and cause it to splinter just a bit, just enough.   
  
Rory sighed. She didn't want to think about that. Anyway, Luke. Poor Luke. The dying inside thing was probably a little much; she'd been shelving romance novels all day. But it couldn't have been easy for him. Everyone knew he was in love with Lorelai. She wanted to ask if he was okay, but decided it would be best not to wound his tender ego any further.  
  
He sat down across from her with a glass of milk she assumed was warm and two pieces of pie. "So how was your day?" she asked cheerfully.  
  
"You know, the usual." He waved a hand toward the other tables dismissively. She figured he meant: most of the customers were rude and stupid as usual, what else is new? He practically tore into his pie. Rory raised an eyebrow. Should she press it? "Are you okay?"  
  
He glanced up. "I'm fine." Pause. "Are you okay?"  
  
"Yeah. It's just that you seem a little on edge."  
  
He sighed. "It's just been a long day." And I'm madly in love with someone who'll never consider me a possibility? Is that how he would have completed the sentence if he were somebody else?  
  
No more romance novels, she vowed. Mysteries. True crime! Anything else.  
  
"I had an interesting day myself."  
  
"Did you?"  
  
"I found out that one of Mom's favorite books that's been out of print for ages is being reprinted again because they're making a movie of it. I knew she would freak out about it, so I tried to call her, but..." She trailed off. Then, and she wasn't sure why: "Sorry."  
  
He didn't register any sign of being offended, instead changing the subject quickly: "That's great," he said noncommittally. "Hey, how's Dean? Haven't seen him around in a couple of weeks."  
  
She frowned. "He's fine, I guess. I don't think he's dead or anything."  
  
Luke laughed. "Trouble in paradise?" Luke was asking her about her love life? He must be really desperate to talk about something else.  
  
"Believe me, it was never paradise."  
  
"Never?"  
  
"Well," she amended. "Maybe in the beginning it might have approximated that. But not for a long time, anyway."  
  
"I hope it wasn't my fault."  
  
"Yours?"  
  
"Jess."  
  
"Oh. No. I mean, yes. But no. Dean decided to go back to Chicago after graduation, that's all. And Jess... well, we write letters and stuff, but, it's not that kind of thing. He might have been a factor in our eventual undoing, sure, but, you know, whatever. I'm not upset about it or anything." She filled her mouth with coffee to stop the flow of uncensored thoughts.  
  
"Yeah, I can tell," he said, in a way that sounded sincere but she still knew he was teasing.  
  
"I'm not."  
  
"I believe you."  
  
"Anyway, what about you?" she asked defensively.  
  
"What about me?"  
  
"Any dates?"  
  
"In the last decade? One or two."  
  
"You should get out more."  
  
"Nah. I like things the way I like them. And what I don't like is someone telling me I gotta change something because she doesn't like it, you know?"  
  
Rory nodded.  
  
"Ah, now it's my turn to be sorry." He forced a smile and took her plate and his to the back. She nursed her coffee until it had almost gone cold before he finally returned.   
  
"I am sorry," he offered. "I didn't mean to drag you into--"  
  
"No, I understand."  
  
"It's not your... anyway, it doesn't matter anymore. I know everyone thinks I'm still in love with her"--at this he winced, as saying words like that was completely unnatural--"but frankly, after all this stuff with, you know, that whole thing, and the other thing, I just... you'd be surprised how easy it can be to forget what you loved about somebody."  
  
"Because you had to watch them change."  
  
"Exactly."  
  
"Dean," she whispered conspiratorially, and then smiled at him like they shared a secret, which she supposed they did, and he smiled back. For a second she thought he might actually cry, and she prayed to anyone at all not to let that happen. Please, please, please, please, please. It worked. Instead he settled back into his chair.   
  
"I should probably go." She grabbed her purse and stood up quickly. He held the door open for her. Before she stepped through it, she placed a hand on his arm and said, "You know, I can't explain it, and it's gonna sound really stupid and weird, but... I just have this feeling that everything's going to work out okay for us."  
  
"You and your mom, you mean?"  
  
"You and me. We're cut from the same cloth, you know. Loners."  
  
He laughed at that, almost without any mirth at all. She kicked herself for violating their unspoken agreement not to talk about Lorelai, but he said, "Thanks." Impulsively--being also cut from the same cloth as her mother, of course--she launched herself onto tiptoes and kissed him on the cheek. "See you tomorrow."  
  
"Yeah," he whispered, clearly taken slightly aback.  
  
When she wrote in her diary that night, there was no way to explain what happened next. There was no logical progression, no cause and effect, no plausible description of the connection between point A and point B. She supposed she must have started it, because it was her M.O., like she was compelled to try every boy within range, an aspect of herself she truly hated and considered a genetic betrayal.   
  
But in the end she supposed it didn't matter how it happened, just that it did, and she wrote that somehow she found herself acutely aware of the coffee on her breath and the taste of salt against her tongue.   
  
She was aware of the fact that although she started it, he wasn't fighting it, and that it kept going on, he didn't break it and neither did she, even if guilt was already beginning to seize her stomach.   
  
She was aware that she was clinging to him like he might float away otherwise, and that he had overcome the shock enough to place a hand cautiously on the small of her back in a position calculated not to offend or surprise.   
  
She was aware of the fact that the normal, safe amount of distance between them had disappeared, and that she could feel the sweat on his shirt pressing against the relatively thin fabric of her own.  
  
He pulled back after what seemed like forever, detached himself from her completely. She could almost read his thoughts, because they were her own: in the doorway? was she crazy? what if someone saw? how could that possibly be explained--if not to someone else, then to each other? She didn't answer any of those questions, because she couldn't. Instead she just smiled, to show him it was all right, even though it probably wasn't. "See you tomorrow?" she repeated.  
  
He nodded.  
  
She turned, again, to leave. This time it was his hand on her arm. "Are we--are we okay?"  
  
She looked at him, trying to read his face. Did he think she was completely mental? Did he think she thought he was some kind of sex freak? Did he want more? Did he want to never speak of it again? All she could find was generic concern. Maybe he didn't know what to think, either. So she said, "Everything is all right. Everything's all right."  
  
All she wanted was to go home and figure out why she'd done it, why he hadn't fought her off, and whether she had brought them so close together that their friendship would be irreversibly destroyed, like fireworks, over too soon. Was he destined to be yet another bridge burned, another casualty of the Gilmore curse, this one twice over?   
  
Tonight, there were questions.   
  
Tomorrow, she hoped she would have answers.


End file.
